ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR monitor;Complete Review

Great picture, premium design and incredible 360Hz make it the perfect monitor for esports( Complete Review).

Any esports athlete knows that hertz is never too high – and will surely appreciate the ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR , the first monitor to operate at 360Hz . But the display is also suitable for those who are not professionally engaged in esports, but simply like to play fast shooters – and we will explain why below.

Design

ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR is made in the typical style of ASUS gaming monitors – with a labyrinth of sharp lines, an illuminated logo and a massive two-tone metal stand. To many, this design seems too pretentious, but in this model most of the elements of the “gaming style”, except for a couple of corners on the front panel, are hidden behind. The 5mm bezel looks great and very modern, and the matte finish not only helps while playing and working, but also draws less attention to the monitor.

The back hides the ASUS Republic of Gamers logo, controls and ports, which, as usual with ASUS, can be hidden by a plastic panel. The main stand is extremely massive: it weighs almost the same as the monitor itself – 3.5 kg. It will most likely not break the table, because the leg span is almost the same as that of the screen itself – a little more than 50 cm. A hole for cable management is hidden in the rack. Along with the monitor comes a second stand with a clamp. It is understood that it will be used to attach the monitor to the edge of the table, but the clamp is a clamp, with it the monitor can be fixed even to the ceiling beam, even to the corner of the wall, even to the balcony rail (with insurance, of course).

The set of ports is not bad, but you want more from a premium monitor than HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, USB Type B for connecting to a computer, 2 USB Type A for peripherals and 3.5 mm headphone output. Unfortunately, HDMI is limited to 240Hz, so you’ll have to use DisplayPort 1.4 to get the most out of this display. In 2021, I still want a couple of HDMI 2.1 and USB Type-C.

Why 360 Hz?

Contrary to popular belief, our vision can perceive much more than 24 frames per second or 24 screen changes per second (Hz). We generally see not in frames, but with a constant optical stream, and the brain interprets the received information into motion. When we watch a movie or play games at 30 FPS, then we see all 30 separate frames, and the smoothness of the movement is already thinking out ourselves. The famous 24 frames per second were deduced in the first half of the 20th century as the minimum speed of film projection, at which the brain can “refine” the movement so that it will seem smooth. But if everything is simple with the lower level of perception, then it is much more difficult to find the upper one.

In the United States, during the Cold War, military pilots were tested, and they could deliberately distinguish and remember details in the frame, which they were shown for only 1/250 of a second. Modern research shows that even untrained people can see artifacts at 500 FPS / Hz. In 2019, Canadian YouTuber Linus Tech Tips conducted testing with e-sportsmen and ordinary players using high-speed cameras that shot at 1000 FPS (convenient for calculations, 1 frame = 1 ms).

He found that both professionals and casual gamers play significantly better on a 300 Hz monitor than on a regular 60 Hz monitor, because for every new frame on a regular monitor, there are 5 frames on a high-speed monitor. Even if you can’t consciously perceive the difference between frame rates, your brain definitely can.

Another important part of fast monitors is low motion blur. In an ideal monitor, each new frame is a completely new frame. Old pot-bellied monitors with cathode ray tubes fired electrons into the CRT. They did not have a transition period – a new electron got in, the frame changed. In this regard, LCD still cannot be compared with the old “pot-bellies”. To change the image, they apply voltage to liquid crystals, which change their polarization and how much light from the backlight they let through. This is a physical process, so it does not happen instantly, and when the image changes, traces from the previous frame remain on the screen.

These LCD monitor artifacts are referred to as motion blur. They are inevitable on any LCD screen, but if you increase the refresh rate, the screen will be forced to produce new frames faster, leaving less time for blurring. In turn, LCD panel makers must come up with new manufacturing methods that will allow the crystals to rotate and change polarization faster.

LCD panels can get rid of motion blur only when they reach 1000 Hz and each frame will show exactly 1 ms. Therefore, a 360Hz monitor has less motion blur than a monitor with a lower refresh rate by default. However, even better results can be achieved from ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR. This model supports NVIDIA ULMB technology, which synchronizes the backlight frequency with the screen refresh rate. In effect, this is similar to the “black frame” function on televisions, where between new frames the screen shows completely black frames. This reduces the brightness of the image, but helps to get rid of motion blur.

Unfortunately ULMB does not work at the same time as G-Sync. This is a complaint to NVIDIA, not ASUS, because the mode is selected in the driver settings. Below we will figure out whether this is a problem and which function to enable when.

Like an escaped Windows XP control panel, NVIDIA lets you select either G-Sync or Ultra Low Motion Blur when the backlight is synchronized with the monitor’s refresh rate for extra motion clarity on the monitor

Gaming chips

Of course, ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR is stuffed with gaming chips to the top. In the GamePlus menu, you can enable an overlay with a crosshair, a clock, a regular timer and a countdown timer, displaying a frame rate and its graph, as well as a grid for aligning the monitor.

PG259QNR supports NVIDIA G-Sync and is FreeSync compatible. It features a new passively cooled G-Sync controller so the monitor runs completely silent, fixing the popular issue of early displays with a humming cooler. According to the documentation, the G-Sync in the PG259QNR supports the full monitor range from 1Hz to 360Hz. As we mentioned above, G-Sync and ULMB do not work together, but this is not a problem: G-Sync is needed if the game runs below the maximum refresh rate, and ULMB is most effective if the frame rate is higher than the screen refresh rate. Accordingly, they can be switched depending on the novelty of the hardware or from game to game.

Another interesting innovation in PG259QNR is support for NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer. This function allows you to measure the total input lag – from the mouse click to the display of the frame on the screen and adjust the game settings so that you get the smallest lag. An Analyzer-enabled game displays a square that changes color on mouse click, and the monitor displays a square in which it reads the game. Previously, such tests had to be done with high-speed cameras and specially modified mice, now such functions are appearing in consumer monitors.

Together with the monitor, we were sent an ASUS ROG Chakram Core mouse, which just works with the NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer in the PG259QNR. For the analyzer to work, it is necessary to connect the monitor via USB to the computer, and plug the mouse itself into the far USB port of the display (the item “Mouse Detected” will appear in the monitor menu). GeForce Experience must be updated to the latest version to be able to select the lag overlay. If there is no such option, then you need to update to the beta version – this can be done in the settings.

After that, extended data on delays will appear on the monitor – the delay from the game rendering, the mouse delay – current and average, the total delay from pressing the mouse button to the result and the average total delay. In the NVIDIA Reflex settings in the monitor, you can enable the latency sensor in the form of a rectangle. If you place it on the muzzle of a weapon, where there will be a flash from a shot, then the monitor will be able to count it and calculate the total delay from pressing to the shot. Some games like Rainbow Six Siege , Valorant and Fortnite allow you to display a signal square on the screen, which will appear when the game registers pressing the left mouse button – this will allow you to more reliably calculate the delay, but this is not at all necessary, the method works with almost any game if it contains flashes from shots.

Many esports games like Rainbow Six Siege support NVIDIA Reflex lag reduction mode and show a mouse click indicator that ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR can count, and the GeForce Experience Latency Overlay counts total system lag.

We were able to achieve a total latency of 3.8ms on the PG259QNR. This is an amazing result, one of the very best for any consumer display.

Image quality

In addition to the fact that ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR was the first to reach the coveted 360 Hz, it also did it on an IPS matrix – and even recently such matrices were considered the “slowest” ones. At the same time, IPS have always been interesting in terms of image quality – and the PG259QNR is not far behind. Along with the display comes a factory calibration report – very good for a gaming monitor.

SRGB Coverage = 94.8%, Volume = 95.1%

• Black level (at 160 nits) = 0.1439 nits
• White level (maximum brightness) = 427.8 nits
• Gamma = 2.12
• Contrast = 1097: 1

Of course, for professional work with color PG259QNR is not worth buying, but if you sometimes need to do something with Photoshop, then excellent factory calibration and a matte anti-reflective coating of the screen will help with this.

HDR on a screen with a maximum declared brightness of 400 nits, of course, for show. Moreover, on the PG259QNR, the backlight is located at the edges, and not behind the panel, so there is no local dimming in it. Therefore, on ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR, HDR looks worse than SDR.

But we have no complaints about the FullHD resolution. The ASUS monitor is aimed at maximum speed, and so far it can only be achieved at 1080p and only on good hardware. Comparing the PG259QNR with WQHD and 4K displays is simply pointless – these are tools for completely different tasks.

Of course, not everyone needs a 360 Hz monitor, but for esports players and fans of fast multiplayer games, it is difficult to find a better screen than the ASUS ROG Swift PG259QNR. In addition to excellent performance at maximum refresh rate, it supports hardware G-Sync with a phenomenal window from 1 to 360 Hz, NVIDIA ULMB at 240 Hz for sharper motion, and NVIDIA Reflex Analyzer for finding optimal game settings for minimal latency. Well, good picture quality allows you to use the monitor for everyday tasks